|
(16) What intelligent mind can doubt the immortality of such
a value, one in which there is a life self-springing and
therefore not to be destroyed?
This is at any rate a life not imported from without, not present
in the mode of the heat in fire- for if heat is characteristic of
the fire proper, it certainly is adventitious to the Matter
underlying the fire; or fire, too, would be everlasting- it is
not in any such mode that the soul has life: this is no case of a
Matter underlying and a life brought into that Matter and making
it into soul [as heat comes into matter and makes it fire].
Either life is Essential Reality, and therefore self-living- the
very thing we have been seeking- and undeniably immortal: or it,
too, is a compound and must be traced back through all the
constituents until an immortal substance is reached, something
deriving movement from itself, and therefore debarred from
accepting death.
Even supposing life could be described as a condition imposed
upon Matter, still the source from which this condition entered
the Matter must necessarily be admitted to be immortal simply by
being unable to take into itself the opposite of the life which
it conveys.
Of course, life is no such mere condition, but an independent
principle, effectively living.
|
|